Reply #4: The NY Times had an article on this very same [View All]

[gristy]

topic 6 days ago. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/06/science/06fat.html

Fat: The Secret Life of a Potent Cell
By DENISE GRADY

Published: July 6, 2004

They are the building blocks of flab, the wages of cheesecake, the bloated little sacks of grease that make more of us - more than we can fit into our pants. Scorned and despised, they are sucked out surgically by the billions from bulging backsides, bellies and thighs.

But they are not without admirers.

"Fat cells are beautiful cells to look at," said Dr. Philipp E. Scherer, an associate professor of cell biology and medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. "I've been working with them for 10 years and I still enjoy looking at them."

On a recent afternoon at his laboratory, Dr. Scherer slipped a Petri dish of fat cells under a microscope and showed a visitor how strikingly they caught the light and reflected it. Magnified, the cells became a field of glittering rings. A mature fat cell, or adipocyte, contains a huge, clear droplet of fat that takes up nearly the entire cell and shoves the nucleus aside, squashing it up against the membrane so that the cell appears empty. But it's actually a shining sea of fat, stored as molecules of triglyceride.

Scientists used to think body fat and the cells it was made of were pretty much inert, just an oily storage compartment. But within the past decade research has shown that fat cells act like chemical factories and that body fat is potent stuff: a highly active tissue that secretes hormones and other substances with profound and sometimes harmful effects on metabolism, weight and overall health.

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